Maxus announce Options/Absolute Radio partnership

27 January, 2014

LONDON — Options, the UK’s number one low calorie hot chocolate brand kicked off the next phase of its media activity this month, a partnership with Absolute Radio. This includes sponsorship of the station’s weather forecast, starting today.

Options hot chocolate is made from real Belgian chocolate and offers a guilt free ‘chocolate treat’ without any heavy calorie penalty, as its drinks range from just 40 to a mere 60 calories per serving. In 2013 the brand launched several pieces of NPD; including new Butterscotch and Toffee flavor limited editions.

The Absolute Radio activity is the latest phase of Option’s winter campaign – 'Free Your Chocolate Desire’ – which has been targeting calorie conscious women via Video On Demand (VoD), digital advertising and competition activity. The ‘Free Your Chocolate Desire’ campaign has been themed around the drink’s unique combination of real Hot Belgian chocolate and its low calorie count.

The VoD shows a woman shattering a chocolate bunny supported by a voiceover saying, “Goodbye guilt, hello Options hot chocolate". The campaign combines an 'always on' element with a weather activated component triggered when the temperature plummets below average for the time of year and region of the country. As part of the campaign initiatives, a competition for listeners to win a ‘warming’ trip to Dubai aired from 6th January 2014 on Absolute Radio, and all activities will run until mid-March 2014.

The Absolute Radio partnership, media planning and buying have all been executed by Maxus, while WCRS was responsible for the creative.

Jean Briden, marketing manager, Twinings, said, “Options is the perfect January indulgence. It’s low calorie, extremely chocolatey and warming. Our campaign perfectly targets the many women who are calorie conscious – their magic bullet is a delicious chocolate treat without a stiff calorie penalty and Options with its Belgian chocolate taste is the perfect answer to this. Sales increase in cold weather and this fact coupled with January’s traditional focus on dieting and healthy eating made this an ideal time to run our biggest campaign of the year.”

Emily Rich, business director, Maxus, commented, “We’ve developed a clever campaign that maximises the fact that cold weather has a huge effect on Options’ sales, while at the same time targeting Options’ core consumer, the many women who are calorie conscious. Weather activation is something that couldn’t be achieved using TV advertising due to its lead times, hence why digital and VOD has been such a good fit for the brand. The Options sponsorship of Absolute Radio’s weather forecast will further build on the Options cold weather association and Absolute Radio’s core demographic is an ideal match for the Options consumer.”

About Maxus UK
Maxus UK was founded in 2008 with just 30 employees, and today has over 250 staff. It is now a top ten (#8) UK agency (Campaign School Reports 2012), billing upwards of £400 million.

Maxus UK clients include BT, Barclays, L’Oreal, Fiat Group and Associated British Foods.

Maxus UK is part of the Maxus Global network which employs over 2,000 people across 55 countries in 70 agencies worldwide and works for some of the world’s most well-known advertisers. It was named Campaign’s Global Media Network of the Year 2011, Ad Week's US Agency of the Year 2011, and one of Ad Age's ‘Agencies to Watch’ for 2012. For more information, visit www.maxusglobal.com.

Maxus Global is part of GroupM, the world’s largest media investment management group that serves as the parent company for all of WPP’s media agencies, and which buys over one third of the world’s media every day. The newest of GroupM’s agencies, Maxus Global is the only agency born in the digital age and the fastest growing global media network for the last four years (source = Recma).